Kindred
by Heero De Fanel
Summary: Kishimoto Kaoru talking in a coffee shop with someone who actually gets it. Crossover with PoT.


**Kindred**

Disclaimer: I own no part of Hikaru no Go. There.

* * *

The silence was deafening.

That was the dominating thought of the old man that stood at the counter of the coffee shop, as he kept an attentive eye on the two young men who occupied the corner table. Normally, he found the youth of today to be talkative, almost gregarious – these two, however, were reserved, taciturn, and quiet.

And tall. They were both rather tall. The only clue that they were in high school (or junior high? He couldn't tell) came from their uniforms – one pristine white, another jet black. Everything else – their mannerisms, style of speech – reminded the owner of very cultured adults.

Very silent, intimidating, adults. The old man grimaced as he took a pull from his own coffee, as he looked down at his paper. They hadn't said anything in over 20 minutes; it was getting disturbing.

Luckily, the silence was broken by his wife bustling from the back. Her eyebrows raised as she saw the pair seated.

"Ah, those two are back again?" she asked her husband, as she picked up a rag and began to clean the counter a little. Her husband nodded distractedly.

"Mmm. Once every two weeks seems to be the schedule. I like them better than the rest of the kids, anyway – at least they don't waste time on useless topics," he said, grimacing as he recalled the amount of teen drama he was forced to hear on a weekly basis.

She nodded in response. "Well, that's good to hear. Still, it's nice to see friends mingle in here – "

"I don't think they're friends, dear."

The declaration came with a certainty that surprised even the owner, and his wife looked at him with an expression of confusion.

He sighed, and made a gesture with his hands. "Look. They come in here, talk, drink coffee, and leave. But the way they do it is… it's almost unnatural. They're not talking about class or the weekend, they're…" he cut himself off, exasperated with trying to explain the two customers, who had yet to resume speaking.

"They talk with the freedom and only strangers who meet on the train have. Closer strangers than most to be sure, but strangers still."

* * *

"He's rather astute, isn't he?" Tezuka Kunimitsu noted, his keen hearing having picked up the conversation somewhat. His companion nodded in a terse, yet agreeable fashion, watching as Tezuka pushed up his glasses.

"His instincts are sharp, but his decorum leaves something to be desired," Kishimoto Kaoru allowed, as he picked up his cup of coffee and sipped from it. As he set it down, he continued, "It's not good form to discuss others in such blatant fashion."

Kishimoto suddenly chuckled dryly. "Well, at least not with that level of competence. They're far too used to having their customers be so engrossed in their own matters that they don't notice the eavesdropping."

Tezuka resisted the urge to 'mmm.' This did not escape Kishimoto.

"Is there a problem, Tezuka?" he inquired, a small, almost imperceptible smirk appearing on his face.

"Your instincts are sharp, but your decorum leaves something to be desired," Tezuka drolly noted, his monotone only serving to enhance his form of dry humor.

Kishimoto resisted the urge to 'hmph.' Satisfied with his minor victory, Tezuka leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms. "Is there a problem, Kishimoto?"

The dark haired boy smirked yet again, shaking his head. "It seems I've failed to heed your maxim about carelessness. My mistake."

Tezuka pushed up his glasses. "Geniuses are irritatingly temperamental," he noted, his brow crinkling slightly.

Kishimoto nodded, the smirk immediately sliding off his face. While the change in topic was sudden, Kaiou's Chief had already seen it coming. This was their routine; the traditional passive-aggressive verbal sparring completed, they were now free to discuss more lofty matters.

"I assume Echizen is giving you problems?" Kishimoto inquired, his hand raising his cup to his mouth, the black coffee no longer scalding.

"Not in the strictest sense," Tezuka responded, his own hand occupied with pushing up his glasses again. "It was actually Fuji who was more confounding this time."

"That… does not startle me in the least."

"Nor should it. At any rate, they played a match on the rain, and Fuji made it quite clear afterwards that his motivation for playing differed significantly from mine."

"Let me guess; he wasn't exactly interested in trying unless he was guaranteed a match that would force him to try?" Kishimoto opined, matching what he knew of Fuji to the genius _he_ had to deal with…

Tezuka gave a wry smile and a nod. He wasn't surprised that Kishimoto had figured it out; his level of insight easily matched that of himself and Atobe (though he doubted the Kaiou boy would appreciate being compared to the latter.)

"I suppose so," Tezuka murmured, almost under his breath. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Kishimoto's thoughtful expression. "What is it?"

"Touya's the same way, though he'd never admit it. Just an amusing parallel I noticed, that's all."

"Oh?" came the response. Tezuka was obviously interested, despite the neutral expression he currently wore. "How so?"

The Kaiou student sighed, and pulled off his glasses for a quick cleaning. "He's told me about how he intends to go after his father and the other pros at full speed, and I have no reason to disbelieve that. Against lesser players, however…" he trailed off, before shrugging a little. "He never has to exert effort. He'll trounce anybody from our club, but he never truly _beats_ them. He shares the same apathy for the lesser skilled that Fuji does. Well, maybe apathy is too harsh a term, but you know what I'm getting at."

Tezuka nodded in agreement. "All too well. It's yet to cost us any matches, but that's really not the point. He told me I was free to remove him from the Regular roster if it was going to be a problem…"

His own interest now piqued, Kishimoto slid his glasses back on silently (and not for the first time, Tezuka felt a sense of déjà vu.) "Do you plan to take him up on his offer?"

"No. His motivation is the trait in question. His talent is not," the tennis player responded quickly, having obviously decided beforehand.

A shadow quickly flitted across the Chief's face. Tezuka, being Tezuka, noticed. "What's wrong, Kishimoto?"

"Nothing," he murmured, almost to himself. "I just no longer have to deal with that problem. A little coincidental, wouldn't you say?"

Tezuka was incredulous. "You threw Touya Akira off the team?" he asked, his normally neutral expression having been replaced by a mix of surprise and confusion. He hadn't thought of Kishimoto as the petty type…

"No!" Kishimoto immediately shot back in a tone slightly louder then normal, a little offended at what he knew Tezuka must have been thinking. Tezuka merely looked at him steadily (albeit a little apologetically.) Sighing, he continued. "He quit on his own. Granted, he did it in a fashion that defied the normal boundaries of what would be considered good candor, but it was an independent decision."

"… Meaning?" Tezuka prodded. If he had to explain himself, so did his Go-playing companion.

"He was made first board, when he wanted to play third. Yun-sensei didn't like that, Touya didn't like the fact that Yun-sensei didn't like that, and as a result he put forth the stipulation that once the semester tournament was over, he would quit."

Eyebrows were raised once again. "The son of the Meijin playing third board? I'm assuming there must have been a reason…"

"Shindou Hikaru."

The name was said with a mix of distaste, irritation, and a little confusion. Kishimoto had no idea why Touya had chased Shindou so hard, especially after the game he had played. (While Shindou was not abysmal, Kishimoto knew that he himself had pushed Touya far, far harder than Shindou had, and his match had stopped being close right before the midgame.)

"I take it this Shindou caused some upheaval in your club somehow?" Tezuka put forth.

Kishimoto sighed. "About as much as Echizen caused in yours, except there were - are, actually, my mistake - less people on his side. Only five or six of us, if I recall correctly."

"First years have never been known for their reasoning skills," Tezuka reasoned, reaching to take another sip from his tea.

"He's a Go player," Kishimoto muttered agitatedly. "Reasoning skills come with the territory."

A beat passed.

"… please ignore the inadvertent – and quite horrid, I might add – pun."

"Naturally. Continue."

"The story goes that Shindou beat Touya – twice – in unofficial matches. Shindou didn't know the difference between Go and Othello before the first match, according to Touya."

_That _piqued Tezuka's already high level of interest. "Latent genius, perhaps?"

Kishimoto gave a very un-Kishimoto like sniff. "I thought so too, until the match he played against Touya."

"It was that bad?" Tezuka asked skeptically. Surely Kishimoto was exaggerating somewhat….

"I wish it wasn't," he murmured. He may have been stoic and taciturn, but seeing the anguish in Touya and Shindou… it was difficult to watch without wanting to say something to either of them. "After that debacle, Touya… well, he used his flair for dramatics to tell Shindou that he in effect had wasted his time for nothing, and stormed off in a huff."

"… leading back to your comment that you no longer need deal with temperamental geniuses."

"Indeed," Kishimoto affirmed, draining his coffee with one last pull. "That's the story up until right now, for better or for worse."

There was silence for a few moments, as the pair sat there and the owners bustled and watched.

"Hmm. It looks as though you've had your hands quite full since our last meeting," Tezuka finally commented. Kishimoto smirked at him wryly.

"Not exactly. It just looks that way since everything decided to try and jump out of my grasp at once."

Seigaku's captain closed his eyes in a manner that Kishimoto had come to know all too well. "Ah, the consequences of having a God complex…"

Yet another raised eyebrow. "Joking again, Tezuka? Who knew that Seigaku's ace had such a developed sense of humor?"

Tezuka returned Kishimoto's eyebrow with a small smile. "Humor is a rubber sword – it allows you to make a point without drawing blood."

"Wit without discretion is a sword in the hand of a fool," Kishimoto challenged back, leaning back and crossing his arms, matching Tezuka's self-assured smile with one of his own. Quote wars. It always came down to these, in the end. Hidaka would have called it ridiculous, had she been there to observe.

Tezuka merely shrugged. "To be a fool at the right time is also an art."

A push of the glasses, and the Chief smiled. "Never argue with a fool. Someone watching may not be able to tell the difference," he told Tezuka, before subtly motioning toward the coffee shop's proprietor. Tezuka stifled a small chuckle with a cough, remembering his companion's pointed observation earlier.

It was a pity, they both reflected, that their own arena was limited solely to wordplay; their level of skill in their respective passions dictated that particular necessity.

"On that note," Kishimoto said, standing up. "I should be on my way. I assume same time in two weeks?"

"Of course," Tezuka responded, as he pulled the money from his wallet and left it on the table. That was another peculiar part of their arrangement; the one who talked about his current events more didn't pay. (It was no coincidence the two found themselves alternating. Tezuka figured once the situation with Fuji and Echizen died down, it'd be the Go player's turn to pay.)

As they walked out the door, (both giving quick nods to the owner, who simply smiled and waved) and headed in opposite directions, they both stopped for a moment.

"See you again, Tezuka," the white-clad boy said, as he began to walk again, not bothering to turn around or raise his hand.

"I look forward to it, Kishimoto," Tezuka said to the wind, not bothering to turn around himself.

* * *

The old man merely shook his head as he watched them leave. His wife, meanwhile, sighed in resignation.

"I guess you were right, dear. That cold of a departure… there's no way they could be friends."

"I told you so," her husband said dryly, as he walked to collect the payment (and generous tip.) "Strangers, like I said."

Still, the old man figured, that was all right for now.

After all, what was a stranger but a friend you haven't truly met?

* * *

**OMAKE**

A cell phone ring got Kishimoto's attention. Not looking at the I.D, he hit the call button and pressed it to his ear. "Hello?"

"One more question," came the voice of Tezuka. "Shindou's loss wasn't really that terrible, was it?"

"In terms you can understand?" Kishimoto asked dryly. "Imagine me playing Andy Roddick in a best of 3 match, with him always on serve at 30-love to start each game. Oh, and I'm playing with my left hand.

There was dead silence.

"On pre-2000 Wimbledon grass," Kishimoto hastened to add.

More silence, until…

"Good_ god."_

**OMAKE 2**

Waya couldn't believe his eyes. He really couldn't. Through the window of the coffee shop was something… impossible. Flat out impossible. But, finally, he managed to get his hand to move to his cell phone, and he quickly dialed a number he knew by heart,

"Yeah, Isumi? It's Waya. I know this is kinda out of the blue, but… did that Kishimoto guy have a twin, or something?

* * *

A/N: Wow. I'll say this right now; you have no idea how hard it was not to make this a slashfic as this went on. And I don't even **read** slash, much less write it. (Not that I dislike it; normally, it's just not my area of expertise. Thus, I stay away.) Tezuka and Kishimoto interacting just came naturally, and goddamn if some subtext didn't wind up there by accident.

For the record, I know that if a have a 'u' on the end of Hikaru's surname, it should logically be Kishimotou, not Kishimoto. It's an idiosyncrasy I have. Sue me.

Obviously this story takes place fairly early in both series, but these two have met sometime before that. Whether or not I'll write how they met is a question mark… I'm tempted to write another story in the Day In the Life Of universe. Any thoughts?

As for the quote war… c'mon. Tell me you guys couldn't see them doing that. With an audience of two, no less.

Finally, some may argue that Tezuka and Kishimoto are too chummy for people who supposedly aren't friends. My response is to look at the title. Yeah, they aren't friends, but they're certainly two very similar people who have had to put up with a lot of similar crap from geniuses. That being said… figure out the rest yourself :)


End file.
